


And the Sun Rises Over the Ruin

by beng



Series: Lucky Heart [5]
Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Gen, Magical Realism, Post-Season/Series 02, Translation, Translation from Russian, all the mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26305522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: — It’s better to not look back when it comes to...— I’m not your fucking Euridice.Translation of KatrinaKeynes' "И солнце встаёт над руинами", posted with permission.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Series: Lucky Heart [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793143
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	And the Sun Rises Over the Ruin

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [И солнце встаёт над руинами](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489177) by [KatrinaKeynes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatrinaKeynes/pseuds/KatrinaKeynes). 



> This last part is the whole reason I started translating this series ;___;  
> I love it.

“You cannot die,” Laura sighs and tightens her hold on the body of a six-foot-five leprechaun that has already started to stink a bit.

She’s not bothered by the smell—that would be quite hypocritical of her. She’s sure that in the past she’s been reeking like a plague pit. What does bother her is why the hell did she decide to walk, and to do so without any plan or direction. She can’t catch a ride in such state, unless it’s some police car, which would press her to the shoulder of the road, and the law enforcers spilled out from it would first find that she’s hauling a dead body and then—that she’s not that much different from it herself. Sure, she looks a bit livelier right now, especially in the sun that’s been shining so insufferably brightly since yesterday, but at least, as if commiserating with her, it hasn’t turned the road into a frying pan yet. But a missing pulse is still a missing pulse.

Laura imagines Sweeney replying to her, almost cruelly, slightly mockingly, like everything else he did in his centuries-long life: “Watch me, I just did.”

“And now watch me,” Laura tells her imaginary Sweeney and shifts her grip, the skin of her arm chafed against the rough denim. Whoever taught him how to dress? The last time Sweeney entered a clothes shop must have been back in the 80s. Or, conversely, he’s been following the trends quite well, considering the 80s are back in fashion. Laura has no idea which version she finds funnier and which would be more fitting for his character. All of it together, probably.

“Watch me die a second time, you fucker,” Laura hisses in the end, stopping by a “Motel America” sign.

Resurrection altars used to be built all around. Perhaps, there are not so many of them in the US as there are in the good old Britain, but in truth they’re just well-disguised. Laura had heard about this huge stone crypt built on some isles in Maine that looked like Stonehenge. It had been a whim of some millionaire or other: he’d built a separate crypt for each of his family members, then installed nice benches around a huge stone table. The locals immediately came up with spooky figures shining at night and a story about a caretaker who didn’t like to live next to her employers, and about an illegitimate son whose bench had been broken.

“Motel America” of course doesn’t feature any altars in their list of services. Just an iron the guests can use, and a laundry room for a separate fee.

Laura is not sure why nobody has called the police yet. Perhaps, the Hindu manning the desk saw her as something more than she was. Perhaps he was some kind of a demon too, or Agni, or somebody with slightly more arms. In this country, one couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some god or another.

Sweeney’s body does not fit on the bed. Laura turns that word over in her head, ‘body’, and wonders why it doesn’t scare her. It’s not just because of the magical potion warming her pocket. Maybe the dead simply view the world differently. View all the existing worlds differently: if you carefully count all the branches, roots, and residences of mythology, you’ll end up with a quite fantastic number of them.

Somebody knocks on the door, and Laura jumps. She trips over Sweeney’s legs hanging over the edge of the bed. A hoarse voice comes from the corridor: “Room service.”

And that voice feels vaguely familiar.

Mama-ji barges into the room with a vacuum cleaner and a warning.

“If you resurrect him, you’ll start a war,” she explains, deftly brushing off dust from the picture frames.

Laura would’ve never thought some leprechaun could be that important.

“I’d have never thought some leprechaun could be that important.” Laura frowns, the flask of second life warming up in her palm. Its her second life, and she’s decided to give it away long ago.

“Look closer.” The cleaner nods at Laura, and she instinctively inspects herself. On her dress there are stains of someone’s blood, but she knew that already.

“What?” Laura is tired of games and riddles, but gods apparently can’t do without them. The gods were invented by humans, after all.

“Not the blood!”

And so Laura does not look at the blood. A regular dress. Regular arms. Dappled with patterns of sunlight, as if she’s standing under a tree on a hot summer day. But she’s far from the window, and even farther from any trees.

“What the fuck?” huffs Laura, who thought she had finally learned to stop being surprised. But no, sunlight from nowhere does still seem strange to her. Maybe even a bit stranger than the grey world around her.

“Your friend is no ordinary leprechaun,” spits Kali, and for a moment Laura sees a burning skull shining through her blue skin. Then she blinks.

“So what, did they send you to take him away?” Laura clenches her fists. “Try. I don’t care how many arms you have, I’ll break them all.”

Mama-ji puts her hands on her hips—two normal, human hands—and laughs. The laughter is a bit terrifying and a bit healing. It’s been some time since Laura has heard someone laugh from simply having heard something amusing.

“You’re a real she-wolf,” says Kali and then studies Laura’s face carefully. “Do you know the story about the wolf and the sun?”

Laura lies.

But, of course, she knows it. She knows too much now about puppies, wolves, and one-eyed gods.

Puppies are sure nice. Just wonderful. But puppies have the habit of growing up, and then you have to deal with something far above your level of responsibility. You can still find them cute, but in your heart of hearts you’ll know that… You’ll know what? That you made a wrong turn somewhere? Chose the wrong breed? You can’t cheat nature, and everything around you is growing and developing. Everything, except yourself.

Laura’s puppy has grown into a huge mutt, with fur like forests and breath like spring wind, and heart like life itself. She could have spared herself the trip to New Orleans, could have avoided traipsing around the country with a leprechaun and a Muslim, as if she was not in a fairy tale but in some kind of a joke.

But right now Laura Moon doesn’t know about that. Right now, Laura Moon together with the goddess of destruction is setting up an altar on a bed of a god-forsaken “Motel America”. Right now, Laura Moon is resurrecting a god and then running away again. Because that’s the only thing she’s good for.

In a fairy tale everything would have been easier, Laura thinks. And then she realises she’s wrong.

Delicate fairy tales with a true love’s kiss have no place among gods and monsters, and no place among the dead either. It’s in castrated fairy tales, watered down to a false shine, that cunning people cheat the god of death and live until they grow bored of it. In fairy tales told around a fire that's the only thing keeping you from perishing right then and there, the god of death looks upon you with pity and declares that nothingness awaits you. And then offers to close your eyes.

Laura never thought she’d see the end of the world. But there it is, right in front of her, shining and terrible, chaos from the deep, from ancient fury and greed.

She fulfils her role—because after her death all she does is turn her head toward the light and follow it like a sunflower. Shadow’s mother had an amazing sense of humour, bestowing the name Shadow on him who will resurrect an entire world! Laura feels like a Jesus who doesn’t know how to resurrect himself. Or how to turn water into wine, which is also not great. It would be interesting to meet him some day. He’s probably a great drinking buddy.

Laura fulfils her role and doesn’t die—she’s being kept in this world by sunlight, as contagious as a leprechaun's swearing. All this time, she has tried to ignore it eating into her skin, warming her to the bone.

Laura notices Sweeney among the others, with a spear in his hand. She thinks that in stories about the end of the world, the wolf must swallow the sun and then kill the main god. Laura bares her fangs and lunges forward, flying with the spear.

And then the world ends.

And begins anew.

  
  


Laura takes a breath, a real, non-imagined one, feels her lungs expand, almost touching her ribs, feels a merry ache in her muscles and her head is spinning, and then she exhales:

“Thank the fucking god!”

“Thank me indeed,” comes from somewhere behind her, and Laura stills, remembering a hundred rules, which are all stupid, but which nevertheless determine her world now. So she sits, not daring to take another breath, and notices that there’s crumpled grass and summer-warm earth underneath her and a pinkish-blue sky above her, stained with white splotches of clouds. The spring is over, that’s what everything around her is saying. Be merry.

“So what, you gonna just sit there now?”

Laura understands that answering is not the best idea. But that fucking voice annoys her so much—she has too many colourful, often contradictory feelings for that voice—that she just can’t help her.

“It’s better,” Laura says, and the words claw at her throat, because they’re alive too, and because they weigh too much, “to not look back when it comes to...”

She waves her hand vaguely, unable to put into words what happens after the end of the world.

“I’m not your fucking Euridice.”

Sweeney—or what should she call him now that they’ve fought side by side, and it’s unclear which one of them has been more of a beast—lowers himself in the grass to her right, and Laura immediately turns her head.

The sun has risen, and she can’t take her eyes off it.

“It’s unhealthy to stare at the sun for too long,” Sweeney remarks wisely and rummages through his pockets for a cigarette.

“Smoking kills,” just as wisely remarks Laura. She suddenly imagines her lungs looking like the smoker lungs they sometimes exhibit in cabinets of curiosities, and shivers.

“Oh really,” Sweeney grimaces.

In the blessed silence, Laura hears the beating of her heart. And then she laughs.

“And now what?”

“And now the sun rises,” says Sweeney, getting up from the grass and holding out his hand for Laura.

Laura squints from the sunlight. And then she rises too.


End file.
